


Break Bread Together

by Celandine



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After arriving at Starfleet Academy, all Leonard wants is to be left alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Bread Together

Green plastic tray balanced on one hand, Leonard looked around the cafeteria. After the past few days, the final divorce decree and his realization that his best option was to join Starfleet, the last thing he wanted was to sit with some stranger and make conversation. All of the two-person tables were already filled, however.

With resignation he chose a corner seat at a long table for twelve, figuring that other cadets would doubtless sit there, but hopefully at the far end, where he wouldn't feel obliged to be sociable.

He sat down and took a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy. Better than what they'd served in the hospital cafeteria where he'd done his residency, but that wasn't saying much.

"Hey, Bones."

Leonard didn't look up until a tray clattered onto the table across from him.

"Hey, Bones," the voice repeated.

It was the cadet he'd sat next to on the shuttle, grinning enormously as if at some inside joke.

"Who, me?"

The kid, Jim Kirk if Leonard remembered his name right, gave him an even bigger smile and nodded.

"You said that your bones were all you had left, so..." He shrugged and pointed at Leonard's potatoes. "Those any good?"

"Not too bad. Try them and see."

Leonard watched with a kind of horrified admiration as Kirk devoured the steaming mound of potatoes and gravy, an enormous slice of meatloaf, and some tired looking green beans, capping his meal with two slices of soggy pink cake. What on earth was in it to make it pink? Leonard wondered.

In between bites Kirk kept up a steady stream of chatter, without apparently expecting Leonard to reply. Perversely his unconcerned garrulity made Leonard want to talk after all.

By the end of the meal, Leonard knew they would be friends.

**Author's Note:**

> For secretsolitaire who guessed that I wrote "The Love of Family" for the Daily Deviant's Kinky Kristmas exchange, and requested Kirk/McCoy, prompt "inside joke."


End file.
